Community

Punjab’s heritage through digitized exhibitions

The art of a
country
reflects the
psychology of
its people.
The quality of
the art
reflects the
richness or
the poverty of
its creative
force. And the
quality of the
appreciation
of that art,
in its turn,
is an
indication of
the aesthetic
and
intellectual
development of
that people. Ms
Amrita
Sher-Gill

Outreach

Keeping focus on highlighting Punjab’s heritage through exhibitions, PDL developed another exhibition, The Khalsa Raj: Banda, Battles & Body Politic. Focus of the exhibit is the digitized heritage of Punjab that elucidate various interesting facets of this glorious era under Banda Singh Bhadur. The heritage speaks for itself explaining history events and original circumstances as they unfolded.

The exhibit displays all the major event, places, forts, and articles related to Banda Singh Bahadur’s eventful campaigns from 1708 to 1716. Put in a chronological order, on display are different historical paintings, hukamname, forts, old buildings, rare pictures, official and non-official documents including secret letters detailing the movements of Banda Singh Bahadur and coin & seal issues by him under the Khalsa Raj, all accompanied by descriptions and text panels detailing their significance. It brings to life the complete sequence of events as it happened right from the meeting of Banda Singh Bahadur with the Guru to his martyrdom.

PDL plans to display the exhibit across the globe until 2016. If you need more info or wish to either sponsor the exhibition or have it displayed in your neighborhood, please contact us at, [email protected]

During this period, the exhibition was put on show in Australia and Chandigarh. In Australia it was hosted by Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Craigieburn and Gurduara Blackburn and Adelaide. Visited by over 10,000 people the response was awe-inspiring. Dr. Santokh Singh and a team of volunteers led by Harkirat Singh were instrumental in organizing these exhibitions.

In collaboration with Government Museum & Art Gallery Chandigarh a seminar was also held along the exhibition in Chandigarh. At the auditorium of the Museum it was inaugurated and presided over by Avtar Singh Makkar, President of S.G.P.C. The speakers included Dr. Madanjit Kaur, Dr. Surinder Singh, Anurag Singh, Kulbir Singh Sidhu and Dr. Harnam Singh Shan The seminar dwelt upon military stratagems, conquests and social reforms of this outstanding Sikh warrior.

Digitization

PDL’s digitization team continued its effort to save more documents for future generations. During the quarter, May-July 2010. Major libraries under our scanner are Sikh Reference library of SGPC and personal library of Dr. Harnam Singh Shan. We have digitized over 3000 books from the library of Dr. Shan during this period.

A total of 416,736 pages were digitized during this period constituting

Books

221,183

Manuscripts

156,400

Newspapers

39,000

Photographs

153

PDLDIMS

PDL continues to explore and experiment to create new tools for making digitization and its online display more comprehensive and user friendly. PDL has come up with Digital Image Management Software (PDLDIMS) a complete solution to cater to the needs of upcoming digital libraries. The product has been created to manage digital images through processes ranging from acquiring a physical copy in the library, generation of its unique accession number, its metadata generation and other allocation processes and finally making the document online for viewers. With capability to search and highlight even digital images it will be of great help to researchers. The application has staff and administration modules to handle all backend tasks related to digitization and digital libraries. The product can be used in Intranet as well as Internet environments and can handle terabytes of data. The digital libraries interested in availing this facility can write to us at [email protected].

Support

We solicit your active cooperation and patronage in our mission of heritage preservation and its promotion. Allow us temporary access for digitization of your collection of manuscripts, books, photographs or any other artifact concerning Panjab. You can also provide information about other sources. Support PDL by donating financially, sponsoring equipment or by assisting us through your expert advice on any area of our operations. Our patrons are our grand ambassadors for making our mission a public movement.